Know the Night: Author Maria Mutch explores the mysteries of autism

When Gabriel was six years old, he said two simple words: “All done.” He hasn’t spoken since.

That same year, Gabriel was diagnosed with autism – a word that his mother, Maria Mutch, initially greeted with anger and disbelief. But as the news sunk in, it began to make sense.

“Ultimately, we were relieved,” says Mutch, whose book, Know the Night (Random House, 2014), documents her experiences raising her son. “It was very powerful at last to have a word for all of that mystery.

“The loss of his language was the most difficult thing to deal with. It was very slow and long and incredibly bewildering. So when we finally got the word for that, it was really helpful.”

But while the diagnosis answered a central question, so much about Gabriel – who was born with Down syndrome – has remained a mystery. It’s through an exploration of the unknown, with all its surprises and emotional challenges, that Mutch seeks to understand her son.

In fact, so much remains to be understood about autism. Definitions of the various disorders that comprise the spectrum continue to evolve, and the number of children diagnosed as autistic continues to edge upward: the most recent study suggested that every one in 68 children in the United States has autism. Our understanding of what causes it, how it manifests itself, and how it might be treated continues to change as well – and has evolved considerably since Gabriel was born in 1997.

“When Gabriel was born, Down syndrome births were actually more common than autism,” says Mutch. “When he first started showing symptoms of autism, nobody said anything to us. There was no pediatrician, no therapist; nobody said ‘he seems autistic.’”

She credits a Down syndrome specialist with finally recognizing that Gabriel’s behaviour was not typical of that condition – and sending them for an official diagnosis.

In Gabriel alone, his autism has expressed itself in surprising ways. On one hand, there’s his wordlessness; and yet, on the other, he has an intense connection with music – and reacts to live jazz performances in ways that are nothing short of remarkable.

“He does not have the auditory sensitivity that a lot of people with autism have,” says Mutch, “so it’s really been to his benefit because it means we can go and be in front of a live band. And if he’s very close to them, just a few feet away, he gets immersed. A great experience happens where it’s almost like he’s inside the music.”

But there are many other sides to his condition as well. The events depicted in the book, for instance, occurred over a two-year period in which Gabriel had stopped sleeping through the night – and inevitably, Mutch found herself awake along with him.

It was an extremely difficult time. “[It’s] hard when you’re in the midst of something like that,” says Mutch. “You’re not on top of it and you’re not analyzing it. You’re just trying to get through it. You’re just kind of trying to put a patch on the side of the boat. You haven’t sort of mastered the whole thing.”

Maria Mutch’s son, Gabriel.

But through the sleeplessness and the challenges she faced with her son, she also found inspiration to tell their story. Know the Night is as fractured and episodic as her life was at the time; and yet there’s a sense of wonder in the mystery of it all, in the desperation of all those nights spent awake, that pulls it all together.

She draws a fascinating parallel between her experiences and those of explorer Admiral Richard Byrd, who manned an Antarctic meteorological station alone for 5 months in the brutal darkness of that continent’s winter – a sojourn detailed in his memoir, Alone. There’s a feeling of profound loneliness and isolation, of desperation – and yet there’s still beauty to be found in the dead of night.

“There was something beautiful about being up at night with Gabriel,” says Mutch. “It was really a complex situation in that it had both positive and negative elements to it. And when I thought about polar exploration, that really embodies the same thing. They’re in extreme circumstances, but there’s this incredible adventure that they’re on, this spiritual and emotional adventure in this incredibly beautiful place.”

Two years later, Gabriel would start sleeping through the night again, allowing Mutch and her husband time to recuperate and reflect upon the experience. The process of writing the book, of piecing the various fragments together, allowed her to put things in broader perspective.

And as Know the Night has hit bookshelves, she’s finding that her own experience is resonating with other parents.

“I have a close girlfriend whose son who is very similar to Gabriel,” she says. “And when she read the book she felt like, God, this is my story, too. And that’s what I hope people get from it…We all know that feeling of being alone and being isolated. That piece of it is universal. Sometimes when you can connect on that level, you feel suddenly less alone.”